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"She was very tall, very blonde, and very attractive," he explained. "I have two dogs, and so when I arrived back from my holiday I needed to take them for a walk.

"She introduced herself and told me that she had a dog and asked if they could join me. We walked and talked. We are both passionate about dogs, walking, food and wine, and enjoying life."

And the rest is history. Neeltje Vanhofweden, 35, then spent every evening of her stay drinking wine and talking with the physiotherapist.

Simon said: "One night Neeltje mentioned that she loved Wales and would like to see more of it, so I replied that if she would really like to do that then I could take her on a road trip from top to bottom.

"There was already sparks flying between us. I really liked how intelligent and confident she was."

The high ranking Dutch police officer took Simon up on his offer, and on her return to Holland, she and Simon would keep in contact every day using Facebook and Facetime.

"I even gave her tours of Turkey and Egypt when I was travelling!" he smiles.

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Then, two months later, the pair packed their three pooches in the car and spent ten days exploring what the country had to offer - from Pembrokeshire to Aberystwyth and Anglesey in North Wales.

"That was an incredible night - it was her birthday," the physiotherapist said. "We ate lobster and drank champagne. She absolutely loved it. We did loads of walking and fantastic activities.

"We fell in love very quickly. She’s strong, beautiful and passionate in what she believes in. She is my best friend and partner for life.

"By the time we came back from North Wales we had established the fact that we were going to be seeing a lot of each other, which ever way we could."

Situated 500 long miles apart, the love birds soon became used to a life of flying back and forth to one another - before deciding that enough was enough in February 2017, seven months after they had first met in Garnant.

Neelpje made the decision to leave her job in the police and spent six months in Wales to see if she liked it, and it's Wales, so obviously she did.

They are now living together and looking forward to the future.

"We are really settled," Simon explained. "Her family have come over to visit and she settled in straight away.

The pair now plan to work together

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"I had no expectation with renting through Airbnb, but we met, clicked and had an amazing journey across Wales. We have had so much fun, and laughed so much. It's been fantastic - we have both been blown away. It has been the most amazing rollercoaster ride."

Not only is Simon's search for love over, but also his stint with Airbnb. Now him and Neeltje are hoping to embark on a brand new adventure.

"Neeltje is now training as a sport injury therapist," he explains. "And after realising that this is the real deal, I decided to sell my house and buy some land, so that we can build an eco village in Garnant.

"A lady is going to take over my Airbnb, so we can focus on putting up zero carbon log cabins and building a completely zero carbon tourist site. All of the ideas have come from Holland, where they have an airport which is run on solar panels and where trains are run on wind power alone. We have so much to catch up on.

"It should bring plenty of jobs into Garnant, which is a deprived area of Wales. We are just waiting for planning permission."

And Simon is just glad that he gave up on the dating websites!

"We both tried that and it was crap. I went on one mental date with a psycho and never did it again. My advice would be to go ahead and open up an Airbnb!"